


Midnight Train

by am_bellanoire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Desperate Hermione, Dissatsified Bella, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22824235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/am_bellanoire/pseuds/am_bellanoire
Summary: “What do you think you're doing.”“I'm sitting here, pet. Been sitting here for quite some time. The stupid thing is late. Muggle contraptions, useless as always.”Hermione actually was going to hex that look off of her face. And there were no 'useless Muggles' around to see either.What came out of her mouth instead was a rather pitiful sounding, “Don't. Not like this, Bellatrix.”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 11
Kudos: 189





	Midnight Train

It was half past eleven at night as Hermione Granger arrived at Kings Cross Station in London by means of Apparation. With a soft pop, she appeared in the waiting area, not at all caring despite her status of Ministry official that she could very well be breaking the Statute of Secrecy. She would deal with the hundred thousand Galleon fine, she would deal with the reprimand. For Merlin's sake she would more than handle any inquiries should they come up, the snapping of her wand if it came down to _that_. Those were not what was on the forefront of her mind in the moment. 

Besides, she doubted the few Muggles in the vicinity – a middle aged homeless man draped in his patched up tartan blanket, a young woman scantily dressed staring off into space, trembling unlit cigarette in hand, makeup smudged – would have realized a feat of magic had been done in front of them anyway. 

That was neither here nor there. 

Her hair, bushy on its bad days, curly on it's good days, was a frizzy mass about her head, her heart was in her throat, pounding like a drum as she all but _sprinted_ through the terminal. The smell of food from the various restaurants thick in the air. More Muggles, but less than it would have been at midday, moving out of her way probably figuring she was running late for a train. She appreciated the haste they employed because it would be in extremely bad taste to draw her wand and cast Knockback Jinxes left and right. 

She _was_ running late for a train, ironically enough, a train that wasn't due to pull out of the station until midnight. On a platform very few even knew existed. A train that was not going to chug along the tracks if she had anything to do with it. She very well _might_ have to face disciplinary actions tonight, but was well prepared to do so if it came down to that. 

Without any hesitation, without the customary glance over her shoulder even to ensure that no stray Muggles might see, Hermione passed through the barrier of Platform 7½ at a speed that was practically a canter, her wand drawn just in case. 

“What do you think you're doing.”

It had not been the first thing she had thought she might say. No, not at all. During the trip there the thought hadn't even crossed her mind what her first words might be upon seeing the familiar head of unruly dark curls and the equally familiar bored expression upon those perfect, pale features. Perhaps an hour before she had departed she had constructed a clever spiel as was her own natural talent to do so but all of that went out the window when she laid eyes on Bellatrix sitting on a waiting bench, carefree as she pleased complete with a cocky little smirk that Hermione would have dearly loved the hex off of her face. 

“I'm sitting here, pet. Been sitting here for quite some time too. The stupid thing is late. Muggle contraptions, useless as always.”

Dearly loved, right. She actually _was_ going to hex that look off of her face. And there were no 'useless Muggles' around to see either.

What came out of her mouth instead was a rather pitiful sounding, “Don't. Not like this, Bellatrix.”

The raven haired witch laughed, actually laughed at the rare use of her full first name. Tittered more like, gaily, like a damned songbird. And it _could_ have been funny, under different circumstances, as Hermione hadn't called her _Bellatrix_ in years.

“The 'Trix' won't work here, no matter the tone.”

Hermione crossed the distance between them in two strides, so quickly that had she been thinking clearly she would have shocked herself with such hasty Apparating that didn't result in a splinching. But that was the affect Bellatrix had on her sometimes. Most times really, but who the hell was counting. 

“How dare you try to joke about this right now. The MLE is probably ten seconds away from storming the place for the amount of magic I've done in the presence of --”

“Spare me.” Bellatrix's attitude was bored, childlike almost as if she had grown tired of a once favorite toy and was sick of waiting for a replacement. Hermione didn't want to dwell on the way that tone made her stomach clench and her chest tighten as if her heart for one dizzy moment had forgotten how to beat. 

“Bella!” 

She was comfortable with the amount of outrage she was able to convey in two short syllables. Almost gave herself a pat on the back for it too. 

“ _Hermione!_ ”

“Stop this, right now. I'm not letting you go anywhere.”

“Oh? And how do intend to stop me, dearie?”

Fair play because Bellatrix hadn't used _that_ particular nickname in years either and it made the brunette flinch despite her anger as her memory took an unwelcoming traipse into the past that saw her on the receiving end of a rather nasty curse, a bolt of crimson from the wand tip of the dangerous and deadly woman that would unexpectedly become her lover. 

Even in her frustration, Hermione could feel her eyes begin to well up with tears. She was just so annoyed, so angry with the impossible witch that held her heart in her bloody hands, she just couldn't stop them. The tears fell, rapidly then and she did nothing to brush them away even as she began to sniffle. Bellatrix glared at her sidelong, obviously displeased by the show of emotion. 

“That's filthy even by my standards,” the dark witch drawled, settling back on the bench with an indolent air of nonchalance. But Hermione could see the tightness in her face as her jaw clenched. 

“I can't bloody help it,” the brunette huffed on a hiccup, entering uncharted territory in her desperation. She was a Gryffindor for Godric's sake but in that moment all that renowned courage, that moxie, that whatever the fuck the Sorting Hat had spewed that first night in Hogwarts when she was more taken by the enchanted ceiling than anything else, failed her in one fell swoop, “How could you! How could you leave me?”

“How could I? How could _you_?” In her emotional state, Hermione had been disastrously unprepared for Bellatrix's sudden ire. The witch was prone to volatile mood swings and in the years they had shared, she had adjusted to them. But with her defenses down, she startled so hard, sparks of reflexive magic shot from her finger tips, scorching the concrete. Bella, as always, was as unyielding as her wand and gave no sign of respite, “You with your cushy little Ministry job, a shoe in for the next Minister for Magic, you just expect me to what? Play by the book? Be some kept woman? Following two steps behind you, expected to ignore everything _they_ don't even have the decency to whisper? I can't.”

“'Bella, please!” Hermione struggled to gain control but it was so _hard_ , what with her heart attempting to pound itself from behind her rib cage, her head throbbing, her nose running, her magic having a field day beneath her skin. Even her voice couldn't decide if it wanted to be firm or fold, caught between a shout and a whimper, “What are you talking about? You're acting as if you're stuck in some cell in Azkaban. I broke those chains for you. I'm the one who made _sure_ you would never see that place again.”

Bellatrix snorted, honest to Merlin, as if the rather tearful tirade from the person she called her other half was a funny little anecdote out of Witch's Weekly's gossip column. 

“Right. And I'm supposed to be grateful, yes? Kiss the ground you walk on just because?”

It wasn't _fair_ , Hermione thought as her cheeks reddened with rage and her fists clenched lest they reach for her wand and do something she might regret – or just get rebounded on herself even stronger – but had she been skilled in Legilimency, she would have learned that her lover was verily thinking the exact same thing. 

She was not, so the words that came out her mouth next were a scathing, “You must be just as fucking mental as they think you are for you to drum that one up!” With the intent to hurt. 

But Bellatrix was a master in deflection. A defense mechanism she had honed during her Death Eater days back when she wasn't so much keen on actually _eating_ death as she was evading it. 

“Ooooh, what a dirty mouth you have when you're cross, pet.” she cooed and the tone was as sweet as it was sickening, “Say it again, more emphasis on the 'fucking' part if you don't mind.”

Hermione's dominant hand finally made contact with the vine wood, dragon heart string cored implement that had made miracles, broken laws, and saved her life more times than she could count. 

“I am this close to hexing you to within an inch of your life.” 

The tears had dried now and the expression on her face was as ferociously befitting of a lioness. Her hair stood on end from the humidity of the station and the crackling, electric pulse of her magic, giving the illusion of a mane. In front of anyone else, she would have been a fearsome thing to behold. But Bellatrix Black Lestrange wasn't merely 'anyone else'. Never had been. 

“I'll just curse you back and won't care how prettily you scream,” the dark witch uttered on a dulcet purr, fluttering her thick lashes for added effect. 

Hermione was lucky enough to be in possession of one of Bellatrix's few remaining trump cards. The other two belonging to both of her sisters. And in some sort of strange symbiotic connection to the two despite the fact that their blood was as different as night and day, her retort sounded decidedly Slytherin, “An empty threat, my love.”

If Bellatrix noticed it, her expression nor tone gave it away. 

“So sure?”

But the brunette could be unyielding too. After all, years ago, she had been the only one to master her lover's wand in a crazy scheme to break into Gringott's.

“You've tried, it didn't work. You can't curse me because you could never _mean_ it.' 

Bellatrix was a sore loser. Hermione had learned this many a while ago and she almost smiled despite herself at the pout the former Death Eater couldn't quite hold back, the furrowing of dark brows before she could think to iron them out, the flex of muscle beneath a sharp jaw bone, 

“I'm still leaving,” the three words were uttered with the harshness of a swear and Bellatrix strode to the very end of the platform, nothing but a inch or two of mortar separating her from a fall into the tracks, 

It was like talking to a toddler. A toddler who was high on sugar, throwing a tantrum, and having one of those scary reincarnation moments where they sounded about a century older than they were at the same time. 

“And where are you going to go.”

“Dunno,” the nonchalant tone was back again and it made the brunette's teeth, as magically perfect as they were, grind, “Part's unknown? Wherever this train takes me. Maybe then I'll finally be free, " the smallest wince, a slight hesitation before the mask was back into place, "That came out wrong.”

Hermione tried for logic. No, no she really _did_ try. It was strange, having to reach on tiptoe, proverbially, for something that had always come to her effortlessly, “Is it really another prison being with me. Do I chain you down, Bella?” Perhaps she was digging deeper than that even, into the realm of reverse psychology. It was worth a try, but Bellatrix was not stupid.

“No. It's everything that comes with you.”

That threw the former Golden Girl for a loop. Brightest witch of her age who had never had to compete with another until she had come face to face with the very one from whom she had usurped the title. Her tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of her mouth as she tried to figure out what that cryptic statement could possibly mean. Wasn't she the one who stood everything to lose in _being_ with the most deadly witch of all time, the one who the majority of their world would rather see dead than rehabilitated? Wasn't she the one taking the biggest chance here? How could Bellatrix turn this one _her_ as if she was skipping along unscathed in this new battle after the biggest battle both of them had ever faced. As if she was incandescently content with all that had happened, like a flip of a Galleon had guaranteed her a stationary seat in the so-called lap of luxury and happiness when that's not what it had been at _all_. It took her more than two tries to choke out a reply that sounded almost akin to human speech. 

“What - ?” 

Bellatrix finally whirled around to face her lover, obsidian eyes blazing with a fire and a depth far too many fathoms below to calculate. There was pain there too in that impaling glare, excruciating pain that an average person, with or without magic would have been crippled beneath the weight of. 

“You're the 'good girl' that I never was, that I never wanted to be. Don't you understand?” She snarled and time, black smoke curled beneath her feet, rampant magic charring the platform, “It's not enough to be sodding intelligent. You and me? We have that in the bag, don't we? But you, you're more than just smarts and spouted facts and moldy old textbooks, aren't you?” Her strong voice, husky and deep when in its natural state and not the high pitched childish tone she used to intimidate _almost_ cracked under the strain of emotions that couldn't be checked quickly enough, “People look to you as a beacon. A whole fuck more than they look at me or ever will look at me. All I am is hindrance. And we both know it. You talk of chains, but I've worn them, I've known them in a way you never will. You stick with me, and I'll be the one chaining you down,” the burst of fiery passion suddenly burned out leaving only a chillingly cold defeat, “You'll make a fine Minister for Magic one day but that day is not today, not with me.”

Hermione needed a minute. At least a third to actually calm down to form sensible speech. And she knew a full minute had passed because she counted to sixty in her head. During the silent reciting of numbers, her hazel gaze never wavered from the straight back on the witch she loved, replaying the years they had spent learning each other, learning to tolerate each other, finding a common ground, disregarding obsolete blood politics, managing the madness of the press once it got word of their _affair_ and flocked to it like moths to a steadily burning Incendio. She could recall the rumors and speculations. 'Friends' saying she must be under the Imperious Curse, an ex-boyfriend whose red hair and large family was almost as infamous as Bellatrix's sable curls and blood status, claiming that he heard sounds of pleasure rather than pain from the cellar of Malfoy Manor when she had been being tortured in the drawing room. The side eyes she had gotten and whispers she had overheard when Bellatrix had been pardoned during her trial. The outright stares and blatant shouts she had encountered as she shot through the ranks of the Ministry despite it all, the fourth finger of her left hand bearing an heirloom Goblin wrought engagement ring, the most ridiculous being that she had allegedly sold her soul to Voldemort himself in exchange for whatever the fuck the gossiping geese and ganders of Wizarding Britian could concoct in lieu of having a major war to discuss.

When the clock that had been steadily ticking along during the short film strip in her mind ran out of seconds, Hermion reacted by seizing a handful of inky curls that had always felt like liquid in her palm and _tugged_ hard enough to pull her lover away from the edge of the platform but also enough to wrench a rare sound of discomfort from full crimson lips. 

Some incredibly crazed part of her that she had struggled to contend with in the beginning of this _situation_ had finally managed to claw its way to the forefront. Of what she was still unsure, but it had taken over for now and that part of her wanted to hear another rare, breathy whimper burst unbidden from that plump red mouth. 

It settled for yanking all that glorious dark hair, and the body to which it was attached, flush against her so that her straight though sharp teeth could find purchase and clench down around a pale earlobe. 

“Perhaps spending fourteen years in Azkaban really _did_ scramble your brain,” Hermione growled, the warmth of her breath and the guttural harshness of her tone eliciting a shudder and a new noise that sounded like a cat's purr from Bellatrix's throat, “Don't you understand you mad, demented, _wicked_ , mean thing? There is no me without you. I bloody _chose_ to be with you. I fucking _love_ you. To hell with the Ministry, to hell with the Wizaring World, well, barring the House Elves of course,” because the House Elves had been the only one's really, not the witches and wizards she had helped save but the servants they kept bound instead who had flocked to 'Miss 'Mione' viewing her as their liberator, “It could fall to pieces around us and I wouldn't give a damn. Where you go, I go. And that's that,” Maybe she had watched Titanic too many times as a teenager, but Leo DiCaprio was hot – not as hot as the notorious witch Hermione literally had wrapped around her fingers at the moment but still - and aged just as slowly as a wizard, “So, unless you'd rather I cast an Incarcerous on you and drag you back to the house kicking and screaming, I suggest you come with me now.” And then as if on an afterthought, she added, “The train's not coming.” 

Bellatrix finally found the words to speak, her expression slack, cheeks flushed, tone sultry as her brain went over how many ways ropes _could_ actually be used, “Sounds kinky,” and then Hermione's words fully sank in and realization of what was _actually_ being said made her brows knit once more, her dark eyes dive to even murkier depths, and her voice impossibly scale an octave, “Wait a bloody minute,” she screeched, “It's your fault, isn't it? _You_ made the train not come. You did something,” oh this wasn't _right_ , 'Why you little - ! And _I'm_ the mental one?'' 

The chuckle that curled like smoke from Hermione's mouth as she led a sputtering Bellatrix through the magical barrier off the platform was quite literally the scariest thing the former Gryffindor had ever heard come out of her body but in that moment she didn't care. Her fingers traced nonsense patterns against the corsetted small of her lover's back as they _glided_ towards the Apparition point. 

“I can be a little mental too, Bella,” said the old lion to the even older snake, “ Never forget that.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, Bellamione, I promised I'd come back to you, didn't I? Just a little toe dip right now (02/20/2020 was too cool a date to pass up writing something to be honest), but I'm donning my swimsuit and we're bout to swan dive back into this pool very soon. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feedback would be lovely, encouraged, desired, all that good stuff!


End file.
